hihihi...

I added a site meter to my site yesterday (duh, isn't that logical?) and I've just had my first report... I just LOVE it :) It does register me as being at Niedercorn, Lux. (which is about 10 miles off) but hey, this country's sooooo tiny that that map is allowed to make a mistake.

It does make me curious to know who else is reading my site... I recognised one person (Hi Jenn) though and I've got an idea about another... but those 7 other people??? Who oh who are they LOL. I'm already very pleased that there's 9 people out there reading what I'm writing :)

Okay, some "sad" knitting news. Yesterday afternoon, I decided to put my Feather and Fan shawl on waste yarn and have a good look at it off the needles. And just as I feared, it looked horrible. I'd added a 3 stitch garter border because the Kfb on the first stitch looked horrible in the (slightly) thin/thick yarn that I was using. The fact that I added a border wasn't the problem... what I did that created a problem was slipping the first stitch. I shouldn't have done that (I always forget if it adds or takes elasticity... If I'd thought about what I was doing, I'd know the answer before starting). Well, whatever I tried, I couldn't get the curve to straighten out enough and deciding that I couldn't live with the way it looked not straightened out I (drumroll please) ripped it all. All hunderd thousand something stitches I'd made. I was at 24 rows from the end... 24 rows of each some 500+ stitches... The yarn's already wound in balls again. I've mourned it and decided that I didn't like the contrast between the black and medium grey anyways. It was too stark. And then between the medium grey and light grey there wasn't enough contrast to balance the contrast of the black.
I have some of that same yarn in Paris nights which is like a dark antracite color and which will look gorgeous with the 2 other greys, so keep watching this space... I might start the Feather and Fan shawl once again in the weeks/months to come.

As I was shawl-less I started making a traditional shetland shawl using the pattern in The Best of Knitter's Magazine Shawls and Scarves. It is the pattern In the English Tradition by Elisabeth Zimmermann. I'm using KnitPicks Shadow in Vineyard. I'm still working on the center square... I enjoy this working in biais :) It's fun and you don't have to think LOL.

Oh and on the Hot Chocolate front... it's been languishing in my bedroom for the past week and a half. I thought I'd finished the body over xmas and I bound off... threw it over my head and whammo... It ends just on my fattest part. So it is not flattering at all. I need to "unbind" it and knit 10 or so more rows so that it will end at a more flattering length. One of these days I'll do it. Would be neat to do it soon as the winter cold is known to get here end of Jan/beginning of Feb.

Eris is languishing in her ziplock bag. I'm not too happy with the fabric I'm making with the size 6 needles. I find it a bit holey. I don't know if Cascade 220 fluffs up with washing or not. If it does then I'll continue, if not I'm going to try and use my 3.75 mm needles.

Ene's done and will be blocked today. Ha, blocking's something else... I'm blocking my aunt's shawl right now and you should see the construction I made hahaha (pics to follow in next post). I'm using my mom's fabric room. This time I put some batting on her designing table and then I used the Yarn Harlots method of threading a crochet thread through the top and stretching the shawl alongst it to get a neat top edge. But as it is not a mattress, I have attached the thread to 2 cupboard drawers at 2 ends of the room.

This is all for now... guess I'm more chatty at 10.30 on a Friday morning than I expected to be.

Cheers